


afterwards

by Halja



Category: Attila's Treasure - Stephan Grundy
Genre: (nothing graphic but still), Arranged Marriage, Childbirth, F/M, Gen, Infidelity, Loving Marriage, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, for the simple reason that i haven't read it yet, ignores everything that may or may not happen in Rhinegold, well at least one is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 01:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halja/pseuds/Halja
Summary: A snake eating its own tail. A love square but not quite. Peace at last.Three endings that are also beginnings.





	afterwards

 

 

 

 

 

Her first child is born to the dark of the night, and to the harsh light and the harsher heat of the fire. It’s just as well that he should learn to know it so soon, Saganova thinks, even as the roar of the flames sweeps her cries away, and her flesh stretches and burns and beads with sweat. Her child will be a shaman, and a shaman is always half a smith.

Her first child is not born to the chants of women. They burn herbs and bring her an abundance of fresh water and clean cloth, and they prod between her thighs and brush her hair and her tears away from her sweat-slick face, and Kisteeva and the older ones tell her when to push and when to breathe in their clear, firm voices. But they do not sing.

The Gyula does. He looks upon her face the whole time, and his eyes burn hotter than the fire and the coals, hotter than the pain. They weigh her and judge her, those eyes, they sear her and they mark her. She doesn’t doubt he can see her ghost. Yet she knows it’s the one that’s trying to push its way out of her belly and burst from her body that interests him the most.  The words slither on his old tongue like writhing snakes, blow out of his thin lips like gusts of cold wind. Saganova can’t follow them, busy as she is with her own work, but she doesn’t need to. She feels them throbbing through her body. _Bring him home,_ she thinks, _bring him safe and hale._ Then, calling onto all of her strength, _it’s not yet time for him to fly where I cannot see him. I know it._

Her first child is a healthy babe, writhing and crying loud and clear in Kisteeva’s arms. The old khatun says he will be a strong bairn. Saganova thinks she sees her smile. It is a strange sort of smile, half-pleased and half-rueful. Saganova props herself on her cushions and holds out her own arms, impatient despite the exhaustion of her body.

Her son’s eyes are slanted, almost like her own. They’re also a few shades too light. Grey as iron.

Saganova holds him tight to her chest and bites back a sigh before it can climb all the way up her throat. She looks at him for what feels like a long time. She feels the warmth of his small body pressed against her own. He looks at her, quiet, and does not cry anymore.

To say that she didn’t know would be a lie. Still…

The Gyula smiles a toothless grin. His eyes burn through the shadows.

 

 

 

 

Costbera is not sure she likes the singer.

Not that he’s ever spoken an ill word against her, either in the Hending’s hall or in her own house. He’s always been unfailingly polite to her, even kind. In truth, he is quite an agreeable man. She can’t deny him that. He would be a fair man, too, if not for that pointed head, that Pagan deformity bespeaking his savage heritage and a cruel father’s bloodlust. The pleasant lilt of his voice and his well-chosen words are sweet to the ear, when he’s not singing fearsome songs of battle and death and woe. Even her husband’s grim face seems to soften somewhat, when he is near.

Perhaps, that’s where the problem truly lays. Although Costbera blushes to admit it even to herself. It is an ugly thought, even thought about two Pagan men. Her husband has already done his duty onto her. He has already got a child into her womb, even. He’s proven her fears wrong, and she has no reason to doubt him anymore. But even if she still doubted strange, dour Hagan, then surely charming, kind Folkhari couldn’t be a… a man of that sort.

And yet.

His visits always leave her feeling uneasy. Not that they are frequent. Her husband doesn’t much care to meet the singer under his own roof, it seems. But when Folkhari comes calling for Hagan at his doorstep, when he stops to eat at their table… there is an ease between them. An understanding. It’s not that her husband looks more cheerful around him, because he doesn’t. She doesn’t think he does. The closest he ever gets to a smile– the closest he _can_ get to a smile, perhaps –  is that fierce, terrible growl that twists his pale face into something wild and savage, better suited to a berserk warrior of darker times than to an atheling-fro in the Hending’s hall. And then, the two men never touch more or longer than what would be appropriate for two good friends. Less than that, even, for her husband doesn’t much care to be touched, either.  

But there’s the way they talk together, Hagan listening attentively to Folkhari’s every word and Folkhari’s keen ear seemingly not at all distressed by Hagan’s rough voice and terse way of speech. The way her husband seems to relax ever so slightly in the company of his friend. The way he flinches much more rarely and much more subtly under the singer’s light hand than under anyone else’s. The way they look at each other.

Costbera isn’t yet much good at reading her husband’s face or his dark gaze. But sometimes she finds herself thinking, _he doesn’t look at me like that._ She imagines she should feel some kind of shame at those thoughts, too, born either out of guilt at her own insinuations or out of grief and wounded pride.

But the only shame she feels is at her own subtle, tentative relief.

 

 

Ada watches her mistress watching her master’s singer.

She wonders if the Christian woman knows. If she can even guess it, if she can even imagine it. It’s not like there aren’t rumors already, although thankfully they’re still of the quieter, half-joking kind. If Costbera herself said anything to confirm them, it would be an ill thing not only for her husband, but also for her.

Ada herself, she averts her gaze. Her master’s business is his own only. The Hending’s brother has been kind to her, far kinder than the priest. And she knows that he’s a strong man, both in body and in soul. If he takes after his mother in some respects, it doesn’t seem to harm the might of his arms. If he takes a man for a companion like the wise men of old, it doesn’t seem to make him any less of a man himself.

Still, she feels a dull ache inside her chest, when she fills the singer’s bowl at her master’s table. He’s stroking Gairi’s spotted fur with one hand, lightly grazing her master’s own over the table with the other. He thanks her in his genial, musical voice. Ada bows her head low and fills another bowl for her master, then one for her mistress, then one for herself. The cat purrs.

Once, Ada had almost wished…

Nevertheless, her master is kind to her, has always been. Much kinder that she had hoped he might be, that day at the market. To her, that’s more than enough.

Her eyes meet her mistress’ light gaze, when she passes her the bowl. She briefly wonders if the other woman has ever wished the same wish. If she’s displeased or happy with this turn of events. If her troth doesn’t blind her completely, she imagines that perhaps she’s bit of both.

Ada resists the urge to shake her head. Instead, she serves white wine in drinking horns and goblets of colored glass.

 

 

 

 

Hidden away in the Hunnish women’s garth, closed up inside the dark of her wain, Hildegund had dreamt of being a priest’s wife. Instead, she’s become a queen.

It is not a bad life. It’s much less hard than being a khan’s wife and standing at the khan’s side as he kept the law of his folk would have been, that’s for sure. She finds she is well suited to rule a royal hall, as long as it’s a hall made of good stone walls and clear Roman glass, and as long as the man she rules it for rules his land and his folk with the same care. No one looks at her as if she doesn’t belong when she pours wine and ale for the athelings of her husband’s court, and each man is eager to raise his cup to her.

Still. It _is_ a busier life than the one she had once hoped for. A noisier life. A much more complicated, _cluttered_ life.

But in truth, it is worth it. When she sits at Mass with her folk gathered all around her and her husband by her side and, as they can’t serve the Lord in any other way, she and Waldhari listen quietly to every word of the priest’s careful, smooth Latin together and let the Lord’s peace sweep over their minds. When his hand softly grasps her smaller one through the stream of soothing words and holds it firmly, warm and gentle as Gundorm’s hand had never been around her mother’s. When he comes to her after talking to his men and he asks her rede in the matters of the kingdom, and they talk for long hours into the night, until all cares have been eased away from his worried mind. When they read together in the golden glow of the fire, and then they discuss what they’ve read, and their discussions are no less long and no less fulfilling. When her bones ache in winter’s cold, but he holds her in his arms and in their bed, and the heat of his battle-strong body and that of his laughing mouth melt every chill and all stiffness and hurt away.

Hildegund still blushes to think of it, though they’ve shared the same bed as man and wife for a while now. It is better to marry than to burn, indeed.

That, too, is a thing that’s worth a few cares and a bit of clutter.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
